Sept. 20, 2014
This page is evolving. Latest info is here at the top. I've moved older contents down to the bottom. - Liza
Data Entry Screens
When someone is entering items into the HCLE catalog (item database) via the web s/he will be able to access the following screens from tabs across the top of the data entry window. Once data is entered through the first screen it is locked and shows up pre-entered on subsequent screens.
Identification Screen
This contains enough information to identify an object or document if it is sitting on the desk or shelf in front of you. It will help you find an object in the Catalog or put the physical object back together with its ID number should they accidentally become separated.
1
IdNum
Number-Auto
Unique number assigned automatically by the data base for for this item or resource
2
Title
Text-150
Name by which resource is formally known.
3
Description
Text-500
As indicated on item or package (e,g, magazine, computer, program listing, circuit board, etc.)
4
DescComment
Text-250
Use narrative to describe physical objects, images, and moving images - include only info that can be obtained from the object itself
8
Color
Select
Dominent color of physical object
50
CatBy
Text-4
Unique initials from staff & volunteer list
51
EditBy
Text-4
Unique initials from staff & volunteer list
52
AltTitle
Text-50
Any form of the title used as a substitute or alternative to the formal title
69
URI
URL link
link to item in digital repository
75
Mediator
Text-4
Entity in control of access to the resource
Preservation Screen
This information will help the HCLE staff handle and stablize documents, physical objects and software without damaging them. Field 45 should contain a link to the final, physical destination of the items since LO*OP Center doesn't intend to keep them once they have been digitized. Field 46 tells where an item is after it leaves LO*OP but before it has reached its final disposition. Field 47 locates the item where it is at the time it is being cataloged. In many cases the item has never belonged to LO*OP and has never been in LO*OP's possession. Each of these places should have a corresponding entry into our People/Institutions data base.
1
IdNum
Key
Unique number assigned automatically by the databasefor for this item or resource
2
Title
Key
Name by which resource is formally known.
7
WherMade
Text-30
Country: City, State
9
Material
Select
Commposition: Metal, plastic, paper, cardboard, digital
10
Condition
Select
Describe material stability (poor, fair, good, very good, excellent)
11
ConditionNts
Text-150
Describe notable features of condition
12
Fragility
Select
How prone artifact is do damage (below average, average (CPU on a modern desktop), above average, very fragile)
13
Functional
Y/N/0
14
Power
Text-30
Normally copied off the artifact, plus "no power required," "unknown," or "LVDC"
16
IsPart
Key
Described resouce is a physical or logical part of the referenced resource.
17
IsVer
Key
References another item in catalog
18
HasPart
Key
References another item in catalog
19
HasVer
Y/N/0
Described resource is a version, edition, or adaptation of the reference resource. Changes in version imply substantive changes in content rather than differences in format
27
Medium
Select
Material or physical carrier of the resource: diskette, mag tape, audio cassette, video tape, paper tape, paper listing
44
ToDo
Select
To scan, photo, copy, locate on web...:
45
Location
Select
Permanent storage location
46
Interim
Select
Processing station - "Location while being processed" on P
47
Loc
Select
Temporary storage location - "Box or folder"
Subject Screen
The purpose of HCLE is to make the items in its collection available to scholars, educators and the general public as well as to create interesting exhibits using the items. The information in this table classifies items according to academic subjects, intended audience and usage. Museum visitors will be able to use these classifications to select items from the Catalog for viewing. Museum staff will use the same selection tool to identify related items to be combined into exhibits.
Field 5 should contain tags. We need a well-defined tag vocabulary so that items become richly related to each other. These Tags may be related to Field 54, SubKes
Field 28: roughly, Hardware, software on medium (tape, disk, rom, etc.), software listings, physical pictures, digital pictures, hand-written texts, printed (searchable) texts, audio recordings, video recordings, ephemera (T-shirts, mugs, etc.)
Field 57: These relationships should be different from Fields 16-19.
1
IdNum
Key
Unique number assigned automatically by the database for for this item or resource
2
Title
Key
Name by which resource is formally known.
5
SubjectTop
Text-30
Subject, topic, discipline: e.g. Math, Computers, History,
6
DonorComts
Text-150
Notes from former owner
15
ToC
Text-500
List of subunits of the content of the resource
28
Type
Select
Nature or genre of the content of the resource. Choose from drop-down menu.
54
SubKes
Select
Keywords, key phrases or classification codes that describe a topic
55
Description1
Text-500
Account of the content, such as abstract, TOC, free-text account, graphical representation of content
57
Relation
Key
A reference to a related resource
59
Coverage
Text-150
Extent or scope of the content (spacial location, temporal period, or jurisdiction)
61
Format1
Select
Kind of Presentation: Lecture, Drill & Practice, Game, Chart, Video
64
NatLlang
Select
Language of Text or Audio
70
AbIint
Biblio Key
Unique initials from staff & volunteer list
71
IntInit
Biblio Key
Unique initials from staff & volunteer list
72
InstrMeth
Text-150
Ways of presenting instructional materials or conducting instructional activities, patterns of interactions, mechanisms by which levels of learning are measured. Instructional methods include all aspects of the instruction and learning processes from planning and implementation through evaluation and feedback.
73
Audience
Text-30
Audience for whom the resource is intended or useful
74
AudLev
Text-30
86
Spacial
Text-30
Spacial characteristics of the intellectual content of the resource.
87
Temporal
Text-30
Temporal characteristics of the intellectual content of the resource
92
Hist
Text-150
Title of any project or exhibit using this resource
Technical Data Screen
Historic software, audio and video items cannot be accessed unless the equipment to play them is available. The Data Table gives the technical information necessary to retrieve recorded artifacts.
1
IdNum
Key
Unique number assigned automatically by the databasefor for this item or resource
2
Title
Key
Name by which resource is formally known.
5
SubjectTop
Text-30
Subject, topic, discipline: e.g. Math, Computers, History,
6
DonorComts
Text-150
Notes from former owner
15
ToC
Text-500
List of subunits of the content of the resource
28
Type
Select
Nature or genre of the content of the resource. Choose from drop-down menu.
54
SubKes
Select
Keywords, key phrases or classification codes that describe a topic
55
Description1
Text-500
Account of the content, such as abstract, TOC, free-text account, graphical representation of content
57
Relation
Key
A reference to a related resource
59
Coverage
Text-150
Extent or scope of the content (spacial location, temporal period, or jurisdiction)
61
Format1
Select
Kind of Presentation: Lecture, Drill & Practice, Game, Chart, Video
64
NatLlang
Select
Language of Text or Audio
70
AbIint
Biblio Key
Unique initials from staff & volunteer list
71
IntInit
Biblio Key
Unique initials from staff & volunteer list
72
InstrMeth
Text-150
Ways of presenting instructional materials or conducting instructional activities, patterns of interactions, mechanisms by which levels of learning are measured. Instructional methods include all aspects of the instruction and learning processes from planning and implementation through evaluation and feedback.
73
Audience
Text-30
Audience for whom the resource is intended or useful
74
AudLev
Text-30
86
Spacial
Text-30
Spacial characteristics of the intellectual content of the resource.
87
Temporal
Text-30
Temporal characteristics of the intellectual content of the resource
92
Hist
Text-150
Title of any project or exhibit using this resource
Bibliographic Screen
Standard bibliographic information for documents and images will be in this table.
1
IdNum
Key
Unique number assigned automatically by the databasefor for this item or resource
2
Title
Key
Name by which resource is formally known.
20
Creator
Text-150
Author, Inventor, Programmer or other Entity (person, organization, or service) primarily responsible for making the content of the resource.
21
Publisher
Text-150
Entity (person, organization, or service) responsible for making the resource available to the public.
22
Contributor
Text-150
Additional Author, Inventor, Programmer or other Entity (person, organization, service) responsible for making contributions to the content of the resource.
23
Created
Date
Date or time period during which item was developed
25
DateCR
Date
Date resource was copyrighted, patented or issued.
26
Available
Date-Date
Date range that the resource will become or did become available
53
BibCit
Key - Biblio
Link to full Bibliogrohic reference for item in tblBiblio
56
Source
Key - People
Reference to a resource from which the item is derived.
76
References
Key
Described resource references, cites, or otherwise points to the referenced resource
77
Is referenced by
Key
Described resource is reference, cited, or otherwise pointed to by the reference resource
78
Replaces
Key
Described resource supplants, displaces, or supercedes the reference resource.
79
Is replaced by
Key
Described resource is supplanted, displaced, or superceded by the referenced resource
82
Access rights
Select
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status: Public, Staff, Copyright holder
83
Rights holder
Key - Copyright
Person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource,.
84
License
Key - Permissions
Legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource
85
Provenance
Text-150
Statement of any changes in ownership and/or custody of the resource since its creation that's significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation
Acquisition Screen
This table contains information regarding how the item got into the collection.
1
IdNum
Key
Unique number assigned automatically by the databasefor for this item or resource
2
Title
Key
Name by which resource is formally known.
88
Accrual comments
Text-500
89
Accrual Method
Select
Method by which items are added to a collection: subscription, web search, donation of physical item, donation of digital image
90
Accrual Periodicity
Select
Frequency with which items are added to a collection;week, month, biannual, annual, occasionally, once
91
AccPol
Text-500
Policy governing the addition of items to collection
Disposition Screen
HCLE is not planning to keep most of the physical items and documents in the current collection. Once scanned they will be donated to brick and mortar institutions that will (hopefully) preserve them. This table will allow museum staff to track an item until it has been moved to its new home and will allow museum visitors to locate the physical item or document.
1
IdNum
Key
Unique number assigned automatically by the databasefor for this item or resource
2
Title
Key
Name by which resource is formally known.
48
ToGo
Text-500
Proposed Disposition
49
AddCom
Text-500
Additional Comments
Recipient
Key-People
Proposed person or institution to receive item
Copyright Screen
Information on how items in HCLE's digital collection may be used, stored, displayed and distributed will reside in this table.
1
IdNum
Key
Unique number assigned automatically by the databasefor for this item or resource
Information about rights held in and over the resource
People-Institutions Screen
This is the name, address and contact file for all the individuals and institutions associated with HCLE. We are currently investigating whether to use a complete constituency relationship manager package called CiviCRM to handle this function. Until a decision is made we need this table.
1
IdNum
Number-Auto
Unique number assigned automatically by the databasefor for this item or resource
2
Title
Text-150
Name by which resource is formally known.
Last Name
Text-30
First Name
Text-30
Title
Text-30
Nick Name
Text-30
Initials
Text-4
Street Address
Text-30
Street Address 2
Text-30
City
Text-30
State-Province
Text-30
Postal Code
Text-30
Country
Text-30
Institution Name
Text-150
Department
Text-30
Position of Named Individual
Text-30
Phone - Office
Number-11
Country code, default US, area code, prefix, number
Phone - Home
Number-11
Country code, default US, area code, prefix, number
Phone - Mobile
Number-11
Country code, default US, area code, prefix, number
Email - Business
Link-30
Email - Personal
Link-30
Email - other
Link-30
website - Business
Link-30
website - Personal
Link-30
website - other
Link-30
Relationship
Select
Staff, volunteer, contributor, partner, funder…
Columns
(also called 'fields' or 'elements') in each table above are: Left most: This number is left over from the columns used in the MS Access data base. It is being kept temporarily to help with the transition from MS Access to MySQL. Once the MySQL Catalog is working this column will be removed.
Second from left: Short Field Name (Column Heading) identifies the column and gives a hint about what is in the cell of the table.
Next: This tells what kind of data can be entered into a MySQL table.
Right hand column: Description of what information should be entered into each cell.
Terms
Key: The identifier for a record in a table Text-number: Indicator that cell must contain text not to exceed the given number of characters. Select: The user interface will prompt the user by displaying a pull down menu of possible entries into the cell. The user selects from this menu. Select is supposed to insure data integrity.
Metadata
At the present time there is a lot of research being conducted about the best (most standard) way of describing objects for museums and archives. The terms used in the tables above come from the modified Dublin Core Metadata used several years ago by the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, USA. The Getty Research Institute is one important player in this field. The web standards organization W3C is another. HCLE needs an expert in metadata to advise us on the best fields to use in the Catalog and related databases. If you have read this far, maybe you are the person we are looking for. Do not hesitate to contact us.
Thanks, Liza Loop 26 Aug. 2013, revised 23 Jan, 2014.
Stardate Dec. 19, 2013 -
Lots of thought has been expended on how to do the catalog but we haven't go a working version yet.
Current team consists of BobS, BillK, JGreene, Katherine and Liza.
Please look seriously at the tables presented further down on this page and let's have a discussion...LL
Dec. 20, 2013
There's more on the Catalog Discussion page including a call for a meeting. Database Team, please go there too.
Stardate Sept. 19, 2013 -
We're trying a different approach to Catalog and Constituency data base development. Lots of work has already been done on
Omeka for museum, exhibition and archive management
and
CiviCRM for information regarding people, institutions, events and fundraising.
Both open source systems are extensible MySQL database management systems. Instead of inventing a custom system for HCLE we are investigating implementing both Omeka and CiviCRM and having them talk to each other. Theoretically this should be a straight forward problem to solve. We'll use this page to document our progress. If you are part of either of these open source communities, don't hesitate to join in with ideas, suggestions and implementation help.
Here are some links to technical information about Omeka:
CiviCRM table structure for HCLE People_Institutions Data Base
Older notes...
Liza's suggestions for the tables we need and their field names and types are in the Excel file linked here. You can download it and edit it in Excel. The contents of that file as of Aug 25, 2013 are displayed below. An explanation of the parts of the table and the terms used follows the tables.
Table of Contents
This page is evolving. Latest info is here at the top. I've moved older contents down to the bottom. - Liza
Data Entry Screens
When someone is entering items into the HCLE catalog (item database) via the web s/he will be able to access the following screens from tabs across the top of the data entry window. Once data is entered through the first screen it is locked and shows up pre-entered on subsequent screens.
Identification Screen
This contains enough information to identify an object or document if it is sitting on the desk or shelf in front of you. It will help you find an object in the Catalog or put the physical object back together with its ID number should they accidentally become separated.Preservation Screen
This information will help the HCLE staff handle and stablize documents, physical objects and software without damaging them. Field 45 should contain a link to the final, physical destination of the items since LO*OP Center doesn't intend to keep them once they have been digitized. Field 46 tells where an item is after it leaves LO*OP but before it has reached its final disposition. Field 47 locates the item where it is at the time it is being cataloged. In many cases the item has never belonged to LO*OP and has never been in LO*OP's possession. Each of these places should have a corresponding entry into our People/Institutions data base.Subject Screen
The purpose of HCLE is to make the items in its collection available to scholars, educators and the general public as well as to create interesting exhibits using the items. The information in this table classifies items according to academic subjects, intended audience and usage. Museum visitors will be able to use these classifications to select items from the Catalog for viewing. Museum staff will use the same selection tool to identify related items to be combined into exhibits.Field 5 should contain tags. We need a well-defined tag vocabulary so that items become richly related to each other. These Tags may be related to Field 54, SubKes
Field 28: roughly, Hardware, software on medium (tape, disk, rom, etc.), software listings, physical pictures, digital pictures, hand-written texts, printed (searchable) texts, audio recordings, video recordings, ephemera (T-shirts, mugs, etc.)
Field 57: These relationships should be different from Fields 16-19.
Technical Data Screen
Historic software, audio and video items cannot be accessed unless the equipment to play them is available. The Data Table gives the technical information necessary to retrieve recorded artifacts.Bibliographic Screen
Standard bibliographic information for documents and images will be in this table.Acquisition Screen
This table contains information regarding how the item got into the collection.Disposition Screen
HCLE is not planning to keep most of the physical items and documents in the current collection. Once scanned they will be donated to brick and mortar institutions that will (hopefully) preserve them. This table will allow museum staff to track an item until it has been moved to its new home and will allow museum visitors to locate the physical item or document.Copyright Screen
Information on how items in HCLE's digital collection may be used, stored, displayed and distributed will reside in this table.People-Institutions Screen
This is the name, address and contact file for all the individuals and institutions associated with HCLE. We are currently investigating whether to use a complete constituency relationship manager package called CiviCRM to handle this function. Until a decision is made we need this table.Columns
(also called 'fields' or 'elements') in each table above are:Left most: This number is left over from the columns used in the MS Access data base. It is being kept temporarily to help with the transition from MS Access to MySQL. Once the MySQL Catalog is working this column will be removed.
Second from left: Short Field Name (Column Heading) identifies the column and gives a hint about what is in the cell of the table.
Next: This tells what kind of data can be entered into a MySQL table.
Right hand column: Description of what information should be entered into each cell.
Terms
Key: The identifier for a record in a tableText-number: Indicator that cell must contain text not to exceed the given number of characters.
Select: The user interface will prompt the user by displaying a pull down menu of possible entries into the cell. The user selects from this menu. Select is supposed to insure data integrity.
Metadata
At the present time there is a lot of research being conducted about the best (most standard) way of describing objects for museums and archives. The terms used in the tables above come from the modified Dublin Core Metadata used several years ago by the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, USA. The Getty Research Institute is one important player in this field. The web standards organization W3C is another. HCLE needs an expert in metadata to advise us on the best fields to use in the Catalog and related databases. If you have read this far, maybe you are the person we are looking for. Do not hesitate to contact us.Thanks, Liza Loop 26 Aug. 2013, revised 23 Jan, 2014.
Stardate Dec. 19, 2013 -
Lots of thought has been expended on how to do the catalog but we haven't go a working version yet.
Current team consists of BobS, BillK, JGreene, Katherine and Liza.
Please look seriously at the tables presented further down on this page and let's have a discussion...LL
Dec. 20, 2013
There's more on the Catalog Discussion page including a call for a meeting. Database Team, please go there too.
Stardate Sept. 19, 2013 -
We're trying a different approach to Catalog and Constituency data base development. Lots of work has already been done on
Omeka for museum, exhibition and archive management
and
CiviCRM for information regarding people, institutions, events and fundraising.
Both open source systems are extensible MySQL database management systems. Instead of inventing a custom system for HCLE we are investigating implementing both Omeka and CiviCRM and having them talk to each other. Theoretically this should be a straight forward problem to solve. We'll use this page to document our progress. If you are part of either of these open source communities, don't hesitate to join in with ideas, suggestions and implementation help.
Here are some links to technical information about Omeka:
Omeka table structure for HCLE catalog
Here are some links to technical information about CiviCRM:
CiviCRM table structure for HCLE People_Institutions Data Base
Older notes...
Liza's suggestions for the tables we need and their field names and types are in the Excel file linked here. You can download it and edit it in Excel. The contents of that file as of Aug 25, 2013 are displayed below. An explanation of the parts of the table and the terms used follows the tables.
More coming to this page soon...